Linux Foundation: mobile Linux needs “magic” to beat Apple

The executive director of the Linux Foundation says that the open source …

Apple turned up the heat in the mobile market last week when it unveiled its new iPad mobile computing device. Jim Zemlin, the executive director of the Linux Foundation, has responded to Apple's product launch with a candid appraisal of Linux's strengths and weaknesses in the mobile market relative to Apple's mobile operating system.

Zemlin, one of the Linux community's most vocal advocates, speculated last year that Linux could eventually become the dominant operating system for consumer electronics products. His argument was based largely on the assertion that Linux's lack of licensing costs will make it the most practical and affordable option for hardware vendors.

In his latest blog entry, Zemlin contends that Linux still has the price advantage, but he acknowledges that the open source operating system still can't deliver a user experience that competes with what Apple is offering to consumers. The missing ingredient, he says, is "magic."

"Apple is unmatched at creating a cohesive experience. While many question the revolutionary impact of the iPad, Apple's consistent user experience is far closer to magical than most things currently running Linux. It may be easy for us to bash Microsoft every other week, but Apple is a true competitor," he wrote. "[It has] the polish, the focus on usability and ease of use, the application and hardware integration all to make using their technology a seamless and elegant part of your day, instead of a constant struggle with technology."

Although there are a number of compelling open source technologies for building rich user interfaces, such as Intel's Clutter framework and Nokia's QML, these are still at relatively early stages of adoption and aren't yet widely used. Zemlin points out that Apple is moving quickly—the open source software community will have to jump ahead if its wants to be able to truly compete. Such an effort will require broad collaboration between major Linux stakeholders. Fortunately, says Zemlin, the Linux Foundation has a battle plan and is preparing to launch a new initiative that will help conjure up a fresh infusion of magic.

"While we're strong on price, we still have a ways to go to compete. The Linux Foundation isn't just going to complain about the need for more 'Magic' on the Linux platform—we are going to do something about it," he says. "Stay tuned over the next few weeks for big news on just how we will accomplish this."

A point that seems to jump out from between the lines in Zemlin's blog entry is that it reflects the growing sentiment within the commercial Linux industry that Apple, and not Microsoft, is the real competitor in the consumer space. Take a look at how closely Zemlin's commentary mirrors the following snippet from Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth's 2008 OSCON keynote:

"I think the great task ahead of us over the next two years is to lift the experience of the Linux desktop from something that is stable and robust and not so pretty, to something which is art. Not emulate, but blow right past Apple in the user experience we deliver to our end users."

Canonical, Shuttleworth's company, launched the Ayatana project in order to pursue its goal of building a more artful desktop. Part of the underlying vision of that project is to produce a free desktop that is designed by designers instead of programmers. Intel is adopting a similar philosophy with Moblin and producing some compelling results.

The Linux Foundation, as a vehicle for coordinating corporate and community engagement around the Linux platform, could potentially help to harmonize some of these disparate platform beautification efforts and bring some much-needed consistency to the mix.

Interoperability, a different kind of "magic"

Although Apple has a wide lead in the general quality of the user experience, there is another kind of "magic" that Linux has in abundance: interoperability. Due to the general openness of the platform, Linux has the potential to support integration with a much broader range of third-party technologies.

We got an in-the-trenches perspective on this issue from Hal Steger, the VP of marketing at Funambol, a company that makes open source synchronization software that is compatible with a number of different mobile devices and platforms. Based on the company's experiences, he says that open Linux-based platforms like Android are easier for Funambol to support.

"It has been impossible for an independent open source developer such as Funambol to access certain basic parts of iPhone (such as the calendar, and presumably this is the same on iPad) whereas on Android, there are no similar limitations," he told us in an e-mail. He thinks that Apple needs to reach out to open source software developers and loosen its restrictions on the iPhone software platform.

"There was no mention of open source and iPad in the same sentence anywhere [during the iPad press conference], which given Apple's proprietary culture and penchant for complete control, is not surprising," he remarked. "If [Apple] really wanted to capture the attention of developers and perhaps steal some of the momentum from Android (which is enabling a broad range of mobile devices and apps), it would seem that Apple would at least throw a bone to the open source community, but there was none."

There is clearly a certain class of functionality that will be absent on Apple's platform due to the closed nature of the platform. Linux-based technologies could potentially have an advantage if they are open enough to enable some of the things that Apple doesn't permit. The extent to which this competitive advantage will help Linux is debatable. Apple has its own end-to-end ecosystem that mitigates the direct need for third-party interoperability in some specific cases.

As mobile Linux continues to gain broad traction, competition from Apple will force open source software developers to think hard about usability and how to deliver a comparable user experience.

70 Reader Comments

Isn't it funny how everyone always sees a need to be open for Apple? While I would very much appreciate an open competitor to Apples App Store the very nature of openness prevents it from being as focused as a closed end-to-end company. Sad though it is, I bet on Apple.

Lets not put the cart before the horse here...create a workable, marginally user-friendly UI experience that doesn't look like a half-assed copy of an OS from a decade ago, before you go setting your sights on what many regard as the masters of user interaction. Linux guys have delusional priorities sometimes....

Rather than simply join the drones saying "iPad fail" or fallback to useless rhetoric, it's nice to see a thoughtful overview of both the strengths and the weaknesses of mobile Linux -- and, indeed, Linux as a whole. But if they're including Android in as a version of "mobile Linux" then it's safe to say that mobile Linux is certainly no slouch, either. I would think some -- if not many advocates of truly free software -- would take exception to including Android, but regardless, Android is a very viable competitor to iPhone OS. Though, of course, it remains to be seen if it's as successful on a 10" form factor, but we should see in the coming months.

I hope these thoughtful critiques can turn into action items, making Linux a more viable competitor both in the mobile market and desktop market. The only thing that worries me is the continued thought exemplified here:

quote:

Although Apple has a wide lead in the general quality of the user experience, there is another kind of "magic" that Linux has in abundance: interoperability. ... There is clearly a certain class of functionality that will be absent on Apple's platform due to the closed nature of the platform. Linux-based technologies could potentially have an advantage if they are open enough to enable some of the things that Apple doesn't permit.

True. Very true. And there's definitely a market, and a place for that. As to where it fits into the market as a whole moving forward seems somewhat debatable, but this is nonetheless a true point. I do believe, however, that captivating the user's imagination with a "magical user experience" is ultimately more successful in the market. And with Apple poised with very upward growth due to their momentum, the user experience is going to have to be a competitive battleground in the future.

I also think, if this is the thought process currently gripping the minds of mobile Linux distributions, Apple would have the higher ground. Suddenly loosening platform restrictions is, as far as I can see, much easier than creating a "magical" user experience.

No you don't, if this was true you'd get literally nothing with Linux.

It's hard to tell where Linux needs to go to get that polish, but I have little doubt on the Linux ability to have a working base for multiple platforms. And that'll be a great thing to move towards, what Microsoft and Apple haven't done (yet have talked about so much) and it could actually get ahead in one way. That's something I think will push Linux adoption to decent levels. Imagine being able to buy cheaper desktops/laptops/phones/tablets that all work really well with each other, the lack of polish on the UI will seem like a minor issue.

I wish them the best. I used to use Linux for everything, and still strongly support it, but must admit that I've come to enjoy the Apple ecosystem too. There are a million things you can complain about with Apple but, at the end of the day, the entire package feels so much more complete.

Linux has needed this kind of push for some time. It's technology is strong, but it's vision, at times, is weak.

Many of us will agree that Linux has much to prove in order to get in the same league as Apple and Windows. However, Linux is improving slowly all the while and with these small improvements going unnoticed, it could lead to one huge new breaking project such as working on more than one platform. This obviously would take Apple and Windows by surprise and as Apple is receiving some bad comments for its iPad, it could be Linux's time to shine. Also, they should charge higher prices for higher quality so they receive more recognition.

Which "Linux" is this article talking about? There is a Linux kernel at the base of Android, Palm, and Chrome OS (I think). Those three have fairly slick GUIs and don't seem like they are missing any magic.

Is this talking about LiMo (I thought that was dropped), Moblin, GNOME, or KDE?

If there is a market for openness on consumer devices, it's very small. Linux easily beats Apple on interoperability, but that is not the "magic" they need to beat Apple in the marketplace. I think it's pretty obvious that people want something that "just works." Android isn't popular because it is open -- it is popular because it's the best UI of all the linux variants on mobile devices.

This obviously would take Apple and Windows by surprise and as Apple is receiving some bad comments for its iPad, it could be Linux's time to shine.

Comments you read on the internet about as trustworthy as internet polls. They give you a picture of a minuscule, self-selected population. People often mistake comments for the opinions of real people. (Then, people often mistake the comments of real people for their actual beliefs)

I'd go on to add that comments from people who haven't even used the device mean dick. As with ipod and iphone, when people got into stores and actually used the things, they are hooked.

I've always been dubious of *nix peoples goal of really competing for normal users with Windows and Mac OS. A noble goal, but it didn't seem to be happening.

But now with Android, Open Source has one of the front-runners in the mobile space, arguably beating the pants off Windows Mobile. That's a big milestone, especially since the mobile side of computing is growing faster.

Will Linux be able to equal Apple's magic? I don't think so in the foreseeable future. But they may be able to come close enough, so that with the addition of some magic of their own they can become competitive in the public's eye.

At the very least it shows that the Linux community has come a long way toward the kind of mindset that at least makes the creation of "magic" possible. It's not that long ago when Linux GUIs were mostly imitations of Windows.

Originally posted by jwoelich:Lets not put the cart before the horse here...create a workable, marginally user-friendly UI experience that doesn't look like a half-assed copy of an OS from a decade ago, before you go setting your sights on what many regard as the masters of user interaction. Linux guys have delusional priorities sometimes....

Mac fanboys like generate a lot of hot air.

The real question is what do you want to do exactly? What problems do you want to solve and what sort of users do you want to cater to? It's very useful to actually use MacOS and see where it falls down when compared to either Windows and Linux. It helps to get some real perspective.

Forget about the chrome. Deal with functional issues. This is how you end up beating MacOS at what is reputed to be it's own game.

Mac users think it makes sense to dump their photos to CD instead of keeping them in iPhoto. So don't take the Apple UI propaganda at face value.

There is one fundamental issue with Linux... the software (not the OS, I mean apps). While we have dancing windows with Beryl, and KDE 4.2, and Ubuntu's amazing auto application installations... the core apps have been hopeless for over a decade. my first outing with Linux was SuSE 4.x (around 1997), and although SuSE 11 or Ubuntu 9 or whatever else you choose is a million miles from this, the core apps barely look any better. Open Office is a visual abomination, GiMP is a mess, many critical media apps lack integration and polish, some decoders are still versions 0.x (VLC is great admittedly) and the whole ecosystem sits together awkwardly, like the United Nations Security Council.

The GUIs are all different, there is no consistency in naming, fonts or accessibility. It's a train wreck.

Apple's stuff, whether you live by it or loath it, is all about the software. OK the OS is neat, stable and fairly quick, but what makes using a Mac bearable, is the way it all hangs together.

I have supported Linux in one for or another for 13 years, and I hate to trash it. After all, it's free... but the sooner the Linux community figures out, it's not about *nix, it's about the applications, the sooner it make become relevant to the other 99.96% of people.

Originally posted by robrob:Imagine being able to buy cheaper desktops/laptops/phones/tablets that all work really well with each other, the lack of polish on the UI will seem like a minor issue.

While I think that interoperability is a vital trait, and that we will one day reach a point where every (wo)man in the street demands it, the reason for Apple's success despite their "lock-ins" is that the vast majority of non-techy consumers think this:*

"Being able to buy desktops/laptops/phones/tablets that are all really simple to use makes the interoperability issues seem like a minor issue."

As an example, my dad could never work out how to record TV programmes with our old VCR, and he doesn't even know how to get the DVD player to work (because the Sky box is always on, the TV does not automatically change inputs when the DVD player is turned on and, yes, manually changing the TV to AV2 is too difficult). However, he has no problem whatsoever using the Sky+ EPG to record programmes. Why is this? Because the recording interface on Sky+ is simple and intuitive. It may not be possible to export recordings to a computer, but that's a limitation that my dad does not care about (I, on the other hand, do).

In the end though, the features that a particular device provides must more than make up for those that are omitted. It is then a case of selling those features to the buying public. And "open source" is _not_ a feature that the general public care about.

* EDIT: and most Apple products work very well together, just not always with non-Apple stuff.

The iPad has a claimed 10 hours with video and 130 hours with music. With MP4 playback the Archos5 costs $420...

Why do you think apple is so special in their ability to make a low power os? Depending on what you take out of a standard linux install, I am sure you could best that 10/130 hrs mark. I don't know if you could run a gui as classy or as feature rich as the mobile MacOS, but that's not what you were saying is it? It's all relative.

Why do you think apple is so special in their ability to make a low power os? Depending on what you take out of a standard linux install, I am sure you could best that 10/130 hrs mark. I don't know if you could run a gui as classy or as feature rich as the mobile MacOS, but that's not what you were saying is it? It's all relative.

Another common problem: consumers don't care if you can theoretically do something with an OS. If linux can draw less power, then some vendor should by all means ship a device configured to use less power!

Having the ability to do something does not count as the ability to do something. As far as consumers know, android doesn't have multitouch and iphone doesn't have multitasking.

Why do you think apple is so special in their ability to make a low power os? Depending on what you take out of a standard linux install, I am sure you could best that 10/130 hrs mark. I don't know if you could run a gui as classy or as feature rich as the mobile MacOS, but that's not what you were saying is it? It's all relative.

Another common problem: consumers don't care if you can theoretically do something with an OS. If linux can draw less power, then some vendor should by all means ship a device configured to use less power!

Having the ability to do something does not count as the ability to do something. As far as consumers know, android doesn't have multitouch and iphone doesn't have multitasking.

I agree - but I have no difficulty imagining it happening because it is by no means impossible. If a company (like google or asus or ...) decides to make a stripped down version it's not going to be surprising. In fact, I would be left thinking "why not earlier". I could make you a stripped down version of linux that could get that kind of battery life or better (admittedly without a gui) and I am by no means an expert computer programmer or a linux guru. Configuring your own linux distros is just not that hard.

Originally posted by divisionbyzero:Sometimes Cathedrals are better than Bazaars. Well, I guess in Apple's case it's not even a Cathedral since they never really release the code. What would it be? A skyscraper?

Disneyland, where they oversee and dictate everything, and leave very little to chance/variation.

Why do you think apple is so special in their ability to make a low power os? Depending on what you take out of a standard linux install, I am sure you could best that 10/130 hrs mark. I don't know if you could run a gui as classy or as feature rich as the mobile MacOS, but that's not what you were saying is it? It's all relative.

Another common problem: consumers don't care if you can theoretically do something with an OS. If linux can draw less power, then some vendor should by all means ship a device configured to use less power!

Having the ability to do something does not count as the ability to do something. As far as consumers know, android doesn't have multitouch and iphone doesn't have multitasking.

I agree - but I have no difficulty imagining it happening because it is by no means impossible. If a company (like google or asus or ...) decides to make a stripped down version it's not going to be surprising. In fact, I would be left thinking "why not earlier". I could make you a stripped down version of linux that could get that kind of battery life or better (admittedly without a gui) and I am by no means an expert computer programmer or a linux guru. Configuring your own linux distros is just not that hard.

Power management is actually that hard. Especially optimizing for both performance (in order to do H264 video) and long battery life. The article I linked says it took several firmware updates before Archos came even close to 6 hours.

Originally posted by hobgoblin:only magic needed is for someone to walk up on a stage, fire up a linux computer and show people exactly what can be done, without making it as dry as school math.

It worked for the Amiga!

quote:

Originally posted by Zoolook:...Open Office is a visual abomination, GiMP is a mess, many critical media apps lack integration and polish, some decoders are still versions 0.x (VLC is great admittedly)

VLC has already hit 1.0, actually, and GIMP is under a major GUI rewrite last I heard. Open Office... is still pretty damn ugly, but at least it has key features up front and you can re-arrange them to suit your taste. As for "integration," there are generally two approaches: use GTK+ or Qt. Then you get a nice level of integration with either GNOME or KDE. The issue seems to be that there ARE different desktops and WMs out there, and it's almost impossible to make one GUI application or frontend look native on all of them. Hell, Firefox has a time of it just keeping up with Windows and OS X look-and-feel, and there are way more than two GUIs for Linux, some of them tweaked considerably among different distros (Like the way Xubuntu hacks up Xfce to look more like GNOME, or even they way they hack up GNOME...).

quote:

The GUIs are all different, there is no consistency in naming, fonts or accessibility. It's a train wreck.

I'm personally glad that Linux programs in the GNOME/KDE space are starting to move away from "Gsomething" and "Kthingy."

Point is, Linux software tends to have a much steeper hill to climb when it comes to consistency across different environments than software for Windows/Mac.

Point is, Linux software tends to have a much steeper hill to climb when it comes to consistency across different environments than software for Windows/Mac.

I agree with you here (and your other comments) and really this is the problem. In some ways a democratic and open approach is the very essence of Linux (by definition) but unless there is a single strategic vision (even a poor one) you're always going to have these issues.

Often, at least in my experience, "open standards" is a byline for "not standard at all".

I have mad respect for Linux developers and the huge numbers of hours and amounts of know-how they continue to bring to this project. That said, I think the Linux community sometimes can't see the forest for the trees when it comes to going head-to-head with Windows or OS X.The "magic" that this article talks about isn't just one thing -- it's everything together. Apple's products generally have amazing designs. Their interoperability is inspiring. The software and hardware complement each other. It's not just a "nice UI." It's paying a little bit more and getting *all* of these things, which woven together, create a strong foundation for users to get things done.The distributed volunteer model of creating Linux has some real strengths, but it also presents real roadblocks to creating a tightly integrated product like those that Apple makes. Ubuntu is perhaps a step in that direction, but Windows and Linuxes all currently suffer compared to Apple by not bottomlining the hardware piece of the final product as well.

Originally posted by quietquake:I have mad respect for Linux developers and the huge numbers of hours and amounts of know-how they continue to bring to this project. That said, I think the Linux community sometimes can't see the forest for the trees when it comes to going head-to-head with Windows or OS X.The "magic" that this article talks about isn't just one thing -- it's everything together. Apple's products generally have amazing designs. Their interoperability is inspiring. The software and hardware complement each other. It's not just a "nice UI." It's paying a little bit more and getting *all* of these things, which woven together, create a strong foundation for users to get things done.

That level of integration tends to happen with major projects focused around it, like within GNOME or KDE, which supply lots of software and programs bundled under a single banner and for which some developers aim their projects specifically. But KDE stuff will also run under GNOME, despite looking like a duck out of water, and vice-versa. It's like taking a Windows program and running it natively under OS X with only a few libs installed to make it work. In fact, I'm starting to think that comparing Linux to Windows and OS X is wrong-headed to begin with, because even within Linux there are branded suites with their own distinctive design goals like the bigger desktop environments. It's probably more apt to compare KDE to GNOME to Android to Maemo to Windows to OS X than comparing "Linux" to any other OS. That's like comparing Euroasia to Guatemala, the categorization is unequal by default.

I don't know why I picked this article to comment on, out of tens of thousands like it, but no one is "beating" anyone or "killing" any products. They're just selling computers and they all want to make good ones, and probably very many brands are going to sell enough units to go on doing what we love them to do. I don't want an iphone or a tablet, but that doesn't make it a bad product and I don't need to characterize marketer's squabbles as some sort of violent assault on them. People who want to buy linux will buy linux and no one is trying to stop them.

It's the 21st century ... people don't care what OS the device runs, they just care about what it can do and if it's usable.

When folks are using their iPhone or iPod, they don't think "wow, this OS is really awesome!". No, they think "wow, this device does what I want it to do."

Linux has been building a solid foundation, working its way up to usability. But Apple and MS have been tackling usability first and solid foundation later. That's why Linux is still relegated as a hobbyist OS.

A lot of Linux distro's trying to bill themselves as "Windows replacements" is also what kills Linux. Folks who don't know otherwise will try to install .exe's and things on it, get pissed when it doesn't run, then bad-mouth it and tell 10 other people how crappy Linux is. Apple doesn't have that problem, so why doesn't Linux? It's because Apple differentiates itself from Windows, but Linux is trying to act like a clone.

Plus, when you have an issue in Linux, 9 times out of 10 the first thing out of someone's mouth is "open the command-line..." You don't hear that with Apples. No one says "oh, to do this on your iPod, you have to open the command-line terminal and type XYZ."

The guy simply substituted 'interoperability' for 'cheap' and so missed the big picture.

Here's the scary part, Ubuntu out of the box isn't even as easy to use as *Windows* (No? Well, on 9.0.4, try renaming a file from the GUI shell. On Windows or MacOS it's the same, you click and pause and the name turns into an edit field. Not so with Ubuntu - and this is a behaviour that's been around since the 80s.)

Now, you Linux types reading this will be coming up with all sorts of rationalisations and defenses as to why that's a bad example or why I wouldn't make a conclusion from one example and so one - and you'll already be thinking ahead to what's wrong with Windows and Microsoft and Apple and MacOS and the iPhone... and in doing this - prove exactly what's wrong. You have to stop talking and defending and start *listening* to the end users - because they have NO obligation to try your favourite OS. No - NONE. I don't care HOW freaking secure, stable or open or whatever is it.

UNDERSTAND THIS ONE POINT: your priorities aren't theirs, but theirs SHOULD be yours.

Microsoft gets it - that's why Win7 had such a focus on UX improvements... that led even Walt Mossberg to say it's made a huge leap towards MacOS's ease of use and that Win7 is the first version of Windows that's a serious competitor for MacOS X. When Mossberg, possibly the biggest Apple shill on the planet says that - it's big news.

In the end, it's this 'you should love us on principle' mindset that has to go because in the real world, it's 'you should love us because we make you feel good about it'.

Originally posted by TheWerewolf:'Interoperability, a different kind of "magic"'

Swing and a miss.

The guy simply substituted 'interoperability' for 'cheap' and so missed the big picture.

Here's the scary part, Ubuntu out of the box isn't even as easy to use as *Windows* (No? Well, on 9.0.4, try renaming a file from the GUI shell. On Windows or MacOS it's the same, you click and pause and the name turns into an edit field. Not so with Ubuntu - and this is a behaviour that's been around since the 80s.)

Now, you Linux types reading this will be coming up with all sorts of rationalisations and defenses as to why that's a bad example or why I wouldn't make a conclusion from one example and so one - and you'll already be thinking ahead to what's wrong with Windows and Microsoft and Apple and MacOS and the iPhone... and in doing this - prove exactly what's wrong. You have to stop talking and defending and start *listening* to the end users - because they have NO obligation to try your favourite OS. No - NONE. I don't care HOW freaking secure, stable or open or whatever is it.

UNDERSTAND THIS ONE POINT: your priorities aren't theirs, but theirs SHOULD be yours.

Microsoft gets it - that's why Win7 had such a focus on UX improvements... that led even Walt Mossberg to say it's made a huge leap towards MacOS's ease of use and that Win7 is the first version of Windows that's a serious competitor for MacOS X. When Mossberg, possibly the biggest Apple shill on the planet says that - it's big news.

In the end, it's this 'you should love us on principle' mindset that has to go because in the real world, it's 'you should love us because we make you feel good about it'.

++

Apple makes products that people WANT to use because they are slick, they are easy to use and they just, generally, work.

The average users doesn't care about philosoy behind FOSS or interoperability or billions of choices (don't get me started on gnome vs KDE... I much prefer gnome but I really like aramrok... Listen doesn't quite cut it... grrr)... they just want stuff that works and works well.

If that (the average user) is that market that the Linux Fundation is targetting, they are going to have to seriously re-think their strategy.

There is no way a collaborative, open source project can ever create a user experience that would be more innovative, polished, and emotionally satisfying than one driven by a single-minded visionary. NO. WAY.

The very nature of open source is hostile to the creation of a designed, end-to-end, holistic experience. The problem is, that's the flip-side of it's greatest strengths, so I'm not condemning it, just calling it out for what it is.

You'll see small pockets of it in individual apps, but it just won't hold up across the platform.

My compliments to the writer of the article, Ryan Paul, and many of the people who have commented in this thread. This is one of those rare occasions when some people who mostly don't use Apple products are realizing the keys to Apple not only being able to survive against a tough competitor like Microsoft but how Apple has been able to expand in new markets.

In my participation in personal computer discussions over the last 20 years this kind of awareness by non-Apple product users is extremely rare.

I use a Windows PC at work and at home but I know the Apple side very well and I think any general product PC software developer should make an effort in trying to understand Apple's success.

Originally posted by schnee:There is no way a collaborative, open source project can ever create a user experience that would be more innovative, polished, and emotionally satisfying than one driven by a single-minded visionary. NO. WAY.

Originally posted by TheWerewolf:Well, on 9.0.4, try renaming a file from the GUI shell.

Select it and press F2, same as Windows.

quote:

On Windows or MacOS it's the same, you click and pause and the name turns into an edit field. Not so with Ubuntu - and this is a behaviour that's been around since the 80s.

First, it's click-pause-click (at least on Windows). *Not* intuitive. Second, this is one of my least-favorite UI behaviors in Windows, because I click a file to select it, or double-click to open it. Click-pause-click is prone to mode errors, which I make a lot.